You may remember good-old David Maynor, the infamous hacker who caused a stir in the Mac community by “exploiting” a “loophole” in a MacBook’s WiFi that allowed an outside user to gain control of the system.
Of course, the hack was then promptly disputed by all sorts of people, said to be a hoax, and generally made fun of.
A little bit later on, Maynor and co. turned up in a nerd-tastic war of words on the internet over an OS X “worm,” trading barbs, assuming fake names, creating counterfeit blogs, and eventually being reduced to death-threats and public “outings” of their online personalities.
Now, according to reports, Maynor is “officially” publishing the details of his original exploit, freed from legal shackles (i.e., NDAs) which he claim prevented him from revealing the truth about his hack.
The hot-blooded work is to be published in the September issue of Uninformed.org (an online hacking journal).
Says Maynor, “Let them tear me apart all they want but at the end of the day the technical merit of the paper will stand on its own.” To which we respond: your 15 minutes are up.
More information [News Yahoo!]
A hacker called “AhMan” has created a software mod that enables two PSPs to play PSOne games over an adhoc WiFi connection, although apparently this software is in early development — really, when isn’t this kind of hack? For now the evidence is a YouTube video showing a pair of PSPs playing synchronized two player PSOne games, so we’ll have to give them to benefit of the doubt that it’s actually legit.
If it is, you should be able to procure the software required within a reasonable amount of time: if you’re willing, of course, to jump through the usual series of firmware related hoops to get there.
More information [MaxConsole]
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As we recently reported, the latest batch of iPods brought with them a few changes that weren’t exactly evident at first glance, not the least of which was the ability to sync with third party apps.
That proved to be especially problematic for iPod-loving Linux users, who had gotten used to apps like gtkpod and Amarok to sync the players with their OS of choice. As expected, however, that blockage now appears to have been cleared by some enterprising Linux users, and the iPod classic (and seemingly other new other new iPods as well) is now back to its Linux-syncing ways.
For the time being, that unfortunately still appears to be a somewhat complicated process, although we’re sure some less time-intensive solutions will be arriving before too long
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More information [Via Digg]
THE NUMBER OF women resigning from IT jobs in the UK has risen over the last year.
According to research from Chartered Management Institute, part of the reason is the pay gap between the genders has widened for the first time in 11 years.
The figures show that 5.7 per cent of women working in IT walked away from the industry in 2006, which was a 2.1 per cent more than for 2005. While the average IT bloke’s pay increased by 3.1 per cent the average woman’s pay went up by only 2.9 per cent.
However it was not all bad news for women. The National Management Salary Survey found that British female managers were promoted a lot faster than men. They were more likely to get a bonus, although these were 30 per cent lower than an average bloke.
So in other words women are doing a better job and are being asked to take on more responsibility for less money.
More information [WomenInTechnology]
A FLAW IN the super secure Apple OSX enables a user to create an admin account without knowing an administrator password.
According to Hackmac, the security hole is really handy if you are a tech support person who has to deal with a Mac user who forgot that their password was “coldplay”.
Apparently it all takes about 5-10 minutes. You boot in single user mode. Gain root access by pressing Command + S (Apple+S). When the first shade of blue appears on the screen, hold it down until the screen turns black with white text. Everything will load.
Enter the command:
: /sbin/mount -uw /
Next, delete the file that tells your computer every time you start up that you’ve completed the setup by entering this commmand:
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone
Type, reboot. Wait for the setup screen to appear. Select “DO NOT TRANSFER MY DATA”. Choose your internet connection and network. Create a new local account to administer that computer which is different from the one you buggered up.
You should now automatically be logged into your new administrator account and will have lost none of your data.
All really simple and one which would give you total control of any user’s Mac, apparently.
DRUG COMPANY Pfizer might have hit upon a new way to push its pills, or maybe it’s merely been hacked.
San Francisco security firm Support Intelligence told Wired that an unknown number of Pfizer’s computers appear to have been zombied and are slinging spam emails far and wide advertising Viagra, a Pfizer product, along with Cialis, a competing drug, and the usual assortment of penile extensions, fake watches, and penny stock scams.
Rick Wesson, CEO of Support Intelligence, said this has been going on for six months. He’s collected 600 spam emails to prove it and adds that 138 Pfizer IP addresses have been blacklisted by various spam-fighting groups.
Support Intelligence has tried to alert Pfizer to the problem several times, but apparently its warnings have been ignored.
Or, can it be that Pfizer has rolled out an innovative marketing campaign, call it covert deniable viral guerilla marketing?
More information [Wired]
Pocos días después del lanzamiento europeo de la nueva consola portátil de Sony, el famoso grupo de hackers ruso “M33″ anuncia su Custom firmware v3.60 para la misma.
No parece que le haya costado mucho esfuerzo a pesar de los rumores de que el hardware basado en la placa TA-085, sería más difícil de “piratear”.
Aunque no se conoce la forma de ejecutar el código puede ser similar al empleado por el grupo con las anteriores PSP y sus firmwares 3.51 y 3.52 y seguramente con la ayuda de trabajos previos que adelantaban un “dumpeo” de la v3.60 anunciada en MaxConsole, un día después del lanzamiento de la consola.
La PSP Slim es un rediseño de la original, más delgada y con menor peso, con una batería más pequeña aunque dicen con la misma autonomía.
La RAM ha aumentado a 64 Mbytes – frente a los 32 de la original – que debe mejorar el perezoso tiempo de carga de los juegos. La carga vía USB y una salida de video son otras de las novedades.
Disponible en España por 169 euros – igual a la original PSP – espera competir con su rival Nintendo DS, la actual dominadora del mercado de las consolas portátiles.
Más información [ElOtroLado]
